Some Poems by Mary Oliver

Egrets Where the path closed down and over, through the scumbled leaves, fallen branches, through the knotted catbrier, I kept going. Finally I could not save my arms from thorns; soon the mosquitoes smelled me, hot and wounded, and came wheeling and whining. And that's how I came to the edge of the pond: black and empty except for a spindle of bleached reeds at the far shore which, as I looked, wrinkled suddenly into three egrets - - - a shower of white fire! Even half-asleep they had such faith in the world that had made them - - - tilting through the water, unruffled, sure, by the laws of their faith not logic, they opened their wings softly and stepped over every dark thing. Snowy Egret A late summer night and the snowy egret has come again to the shallows in front of my house as he has for forty years. Don’t think he is a casual part of my life, that white stroke in the dark. The Egret Every time but one the little fish and the green and spotted frogs know the egret’s bamboo legs from the thin and polished reeds at the edge of the silky world of water. Then, in their last inch of time, they see, for an instant, the white froth of her shoulders, and the white scrolls of her belly, and the white flame of her head. What more can you say about such wild swimmers? They were here, they were silent, they are gone, having tasted sheer terror. Therefore I have invented words with which to stand back on the weedy shore— with which to say: Look! Look! What is this dark death that opens like a white door? Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond So heavy is the long-necked, long-bodied heron, always it is a surprise when her smoke-colored wings open and she turns from the thick water, from the black sticks of the summer pond, and slowly rises into the air and is gone. Then, not for the first or the last time, I take the deep breath of happiness, and I think how unlikely it is that death is a hole in the ground, how improbable that ascension is not possible, though everything seems so inert, so nailed back into itself-- the muskrat and his lumpy lodge, the turtle, the fallen gate. And especially it is wonderful that the summers are long and the ponds so dark and so many, and therefore it isn't a miracle but the common thing, this decision, this trailing of the long legs in the water, this opening up of the heavy body into a new life: see how the sudden gray-blue sheets of her wings strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing takes her in. Mysteries, Four of the Simple Ones How does the seed-grain feel when it is just beginning to be wheat? And how does the catbird feel when the blue eggs break and become little catbirds? Maybe on midsummer night’s eve, and without fanfare? And how does the turtle feel as she covers her eggs with the sweep of her feet, then leaves them for the world to take care of? Does she know her accomplishment? And when the blue heron, breaking his long breast feathers, sees one feather fall, does he know I will find it? Will he see me holding it in my hand? as he opens his wings softly and without a sound— as he rises and floats over the water? And this is just any day at the edge of the pond, a black and leafy pond without a name until I named it. And what else can we do when the mysteries present themselves but hope to pluck from the basket the brisk words that will applaud them, the heron, the turtle, the catbird, the seed-grain kneeling in the dark earth, its body opening into the golden world?

The Summer Day Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper I mean— the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Night Herons Some herons were fishing in the robes of the night and a low hour of the water’s body and the fish, I suppose were full of fish happiness in those transparent inches even as, over and over, the beaks jacked down and the narrow bodies were lifted with every quick sally, and that was the end of them as far as we know though, what do we know except that death is so everywhere and so entire— pummeling and felling or sometimes, like this, appearing through such a thin door— one stab, and you’re through! And what then? Why, then it was almost morning, and one by one the birds opened their wings and flew. Reckless Poem Today again I am hardly myself. It happens over and over. It is heaven-sent. It flows through me like the blue wave. Green leaves – you may believe this or not – have once or twice emerged from the tips of my fingers somewhere deep in the woods, in the reckless seizure of spring. Though, of course, I also know that other song, the sweet passion of one-ness. Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the tumbled pine needles she toiled. And I thought: she will never live another life but this one. And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength is she not wonderful and wise? And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything until I came to myself. And still, even in these northern woods, on these hills of sand, I have flown from the other window of myself to become white heron, blue whale, red fox, hedgehog. Oh, sometimes already my body has felt like the body of a flower! Sometimes already my heart is a red parrot, perched among strange, dark trees, flapping and screaming. Many Miles The feet of the heron, under those bamboo stems, hold the blue body, the great beak above the shallows of the pond. Who could guess their patience? Sometimes the toes shake, like worms. What fish could resist? Or think of the cricket, his green hooks climbing the blade of grass— or think of camel feet like ear muffs, striding over the sand— or think of your own slapping along the highway, a long life, many miles. To each of us comes the body gift. Lead Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend told me of one on the shore that lifted its head and opened the elegant beak and cried out in the long, sweet savoring of its life which, if you have heard it, you know is a sacred thing, and for which, if you have not heard it, you had better hurry to where they still sing. And, believe me, tell no one just where that is. The next morning this loon, speckled and iridescent and with a plan to fly home to some hidden lake, was dead on the shore. I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.